Fides Lim, wife of detained National
Democratic Front of the Philippines peace consultant Vicente Ladlad, again demanded
the return of her husband’s hearing aid she said was taken by the police arresting
team.

“[T]hat Oticon pair cost me a lot,
we’re still waiting for the police team to return these. It’s fitted just for
Vic’s ear canal, what use is it to you?” Lim wrote on her Facebook account
following the first hearing on the illegal
possession of firearms and explosives case against Ladlad and
companions Alberto and Virginia Villamor at the Quezon City Regional
Trial Court Thursday, September 12.

Lim was actually commenting on Police Major Raleigh Herbert Ampuan’s testimony
that medical examinations on Ladlad and the Villamors were duly performed and
that their arrest was lawful.

Ampuan is a Philippine National Police (PNP) Crime Laboratory personnel at Camp Crame.

Lim said Ampuan should have noted in
his report that Ladlad had difficulty of hearing he wasn’t wearing his hearing
aid during their arrest.

“Doctor doctoran,” (playing doctor) Lim said of the police
doctor who testified he was limited to looking for just physical injuries on
the three “as he was not in a hospital.”

‘Irregular’

In
his testimony, Ampuan admitted those arrested last November 8 should have been
brought to the nearest government hospital.

“I asked them why did they not bring those arrested to the nearest government hospital. They insisted that I should be the one to examine the three,” Ampuan said during the cross examination.

Ampuan explained it was the command of the Chief of PNP [Police
Director General Oscar Albayalde].

Ampuan also
admitted there was no written request for the PNP Crime Laboratory to do the
physical examination.

“When I asked them [QCPD] for the request, they just told me they
would give it later,” he explained.

In his
medico-legal reports, Ampuan noted that the three had the same blood pressure
of 140/90. He also said he did not note of any “external findings [injuries].”

‘Lies’

Lim,
however, said “Ampuan’s testimony was “sapped/zapped by a miasma of
untruths,” insisting that no physical examination were conducted on the
arrested persons.

She pointed out that while that Ampuan’s medical report was
time-stamped “7:11 AM”, the “Request for Physical Examination”
by the QCPD superintendent, based on the “Received” stamp marks of
the PC Crime Laboratory, indicate the times of “8:30 AM” and
“8:35 AM.”

“Why would a police doctor do something without first awaiting the
order of his superior?” Lim asked.

Lim also pointed out that the blood pressure of all three was a
uniform “140/90” on the three exam sheets she said is an unlikely occurrence.

She added that Virginia told her that
no medical examination was performed on them.

“More
peculiar is, why didn’t the doctor note down that Virginia had difficulty
standing up and that walking was even more excruciatingly difficult? Wasn’t he
supposed to have done a ‘physical examination’ to determine the presence of
superficial injuries?” Lim asked.

Virginia’s
hip and leg injuries were aggravated when the arresting officers forcibly
forced her to lie face down on the floor during the arrest, Lim explained.

“It’s symptomatic of the entirety of this Case of Planted Firearms vs. Vic Ladlad and the Villamors – TRUMPED UP as with other fabricated cases against other activists and critics of the Duterte government,” Lim said. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)

Two workers of the Abante News Group were slightly
injured when four masked gunmen attacked its printing plant in Parañaque City
and attempted to burn it down early Monday, September 9, the National Union of
Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) said in an alert.

The Group publishes the popular tabloids Abante and Abante Tonite.
The tabloids have been publishing and posting online stories critical of the
Rodrigo Duterte government.

Abante managing editor Fernando Jadulco called the
attack “the first violent act against our group and its facilities since
1987.”

The NUJP said it is also believed to be the first
attack of its kind on a news outfit in recent history.

Jadulco told NUJP said the attackers stormed the
printing plant around 2 a.m. “just as we had finished printing.”

The attackers quickly poured gasoline on the
machines and printing supplies and set these on fire.

But the quick response of the Parañaque Fire Station
prevented any serious damage to the facility, the NUJP said.

National Capital Region Police Office director
Guillermo Eleazar ordered an investigation of the incident, the media group
added.

Jadulco said the incident would not disrupt their
operations.

“We will continue to publish,” he told the
NUJP.

In a separate statement, Jadulco said: “We will
not be cowed by this attempt to strike fear into our reporters, editors and
staff. Our commitment to hard-hitting journalism remains unshaken.”

There are no reports yet of the identities of the gunmen and the reason behind the attacks as of this posting.

In 2006, during the Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo administration’s State of National Emergency, the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group of the Philippine National Police raided Abante’s office but withdrew upon seeing the presence of television crews. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)

The National Food Authority (NFA) in Nueve Ecija can only buy four percent of the province’s expected rice harvest of 21 million sacks this main cropping season, its provincial manager said.

In an interview with local radio station Radyo
Natin-Guimba last Friday, NFA provincial manager Genoveva Villar said they are ready
to buy 900,000 sacks of palay (unhusked rice) from the province’s rice farmers
at P17.00 per kilo.

Villar said further instructions have yet to reach their office
after President Rodrigo Duterte ordered that the NFA buy all palay from farmers
following widespread complaints that the crop is being bought at only P7 per
kilo due to the influx of cheap rice imports.

Palay was bought by traders at P21 per kilo prior to the
impmentation of the Duterte government’s rice tarrification law.

The NFA in the province is willing to follow the
president’s instructions if funds are made available, Villar said.

Villar added that if farmers would be qualified for
added incentatives if their palay is fully dried.

Radyo Natin-Guimba reported, however, that farmers
said this is a difficult precondition as the rainy season has already arrived
and there are shortages of drying facilities in the province.

Villar also admitted that its warehouses are
currently full of both imported and local rice, which she said is in accordance
with the government’s buffer stock policy.

She suggested that the government may rent
additional warehouses.

Radyo Natin-Guimba also reported that the NFA’s
national budget of P7 billion is only enough to buy nine million sacks, which
is not even half of Nueva Ecija’s projected harvest of 21 million sacks.

Nueva Ecija is one of the country’s top rice producing provinces. It current cropping is expected to be harvested in October. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)

The National Democratic Front (NDF) in
North East Mindanao accused top officers of the Armed Forces of the Philippines
(AFP) of earning millions of pesos from fake New People’s Army (NPA) surrenders.

Reacting to AFP’s announcement of
re-focusing its E-CLIP (Enhanced Comprehensive Local Integration Program) on
some barrios in the four provinces of Caraga, the NDF said that the move will
yet be a new source of corruption of millions of pesos of public funds.

“Moreover, it is also a capital for the promotion of AFP officials and their impossible dream of demonizing the (NPA) and revolutionary movement through the parading of fake-forced-to-surrenders,” NDF North Eat Mindanao spokesperson Maria Malaya said in a statement.

The NDF said that based on reports it received from various
barangays and communities in the region, those impelled to surrender were
promised Php65,000 each. Some of the “surrenderees”, however, only received Php5,000
while majority were left empty-handed.

“In other cases, the Php5,000 was paid in the form of ‘down payment’ for a motorcycle, and the ‘surrenderee’ is then obliged to pay in installment the total amount of Php65,000 for said motorcycle,” Malaya revealed.

Malaya accused the AFP officials of cunningly doubling their kickbacks
from the E-CLIP budget and from commissions by acting as sales agents for the motorcycle
companies.

Since the collapse of the formal peace talks with the National
Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) Negotiating Panel in November 2017,
the Rodrigo Duterte government had been active in parading “NPA surrenderees”
and promising them financial enticements through the E-CLIP.

‘Jobs, houses’

Duterte himself met with hundreds of the so-called
surrenderees since he ordered the termination of his government’s peace talks
with the NDFP through Proclamation No. 360 in
November 23, 2017.

“Look, I am addressing myself to all the soldiers of
the New People’s Army. Surrender now and lay down your arms. There are jobs
waiting for you and I am building, all throughout the country, almost 5,000 [houses]
with at the National Housing Authority,” Duterte said in November 2017.

Shortly after, in December 2017, the government proscribed the Communist
Party of the Philippines and the NPA as terrorist groups through Duterte‘s Proclamation No. 374.

From January
to May 2018, AFP claimed that a total of 7,194 NPA members and supporters have
surrendered.

Former AFP chief of staff Rey Guerrero, however, clarified in
February 2018, that at least 80 percent of the so-called surrenderees are
non-combatants.

“Out of about a thousand, 980 are surrenderees.
About 800 of them are not regular combatants. They are part of the underground
organization, the political structures,” Guerrero said.

In the same period, Duterte welcomed batches of so-called
surrenderees in Malacañan and reportedly gave them food packs and smart phones.

Last July 30 to early August, 88 so-called former NPA members enjoyed an all-expense-paid tour of Hong
Kong in fulfilment of Duterte’s promise in December 21, 2017 that he would let
the former rebels experience life in a developed country.

Duterte also promised to make rebel returnees members of the AFP and even allowed them to keep their firearms.

Forced enlistment

But not all so-called surrenderees are willing conscripts and have become regular troopers of the AFP, the NDF said.

Malaya said there are cases of fake or forced surrenderees who were
compelled to enlist and undergo Citizens Auxiliary Force Geographical Unit (CAFGU)
training and were promised bigger amounts of cash after they have been
presented to the media in the cities or in Malacañang.

“Only a handful was able to receive a small amount of cash. Most
of them only got some kilos of rice, noodles and sardines. In short, none of
them were able to receive the actual amount promised,” Malaya said.

In the case of the 96 “surrenderees” presented by the AFP’s 401st
and 402nd Infantry Brigade in Surigao del Sur in November 10, 2018, AFP
officers pocketed Php5.8 million, the rebel spokesperson revealed.

Malaya said that a total of Php480 million had been pocketed by AFP, police and Office of the Presidential Peace Adviser on the Peace Process (OPAPP) from the supposed 8,000 NPA surrenders since 2018.

“This modus by the military
is hardly new, and has long been exposed as a scheme for deception and corruption
by AFP officials through the E-CLIP,” she added.

Former Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process Jesus Dureza resigned
in November 27, 2018 for reportedly failing to curb corruption at his agency following
Duterte public sacking of OPAPP officials who allegedly pocketed funds for the
E-CLIP and the Payapa at Masaganang Pamayanan
(PAMANA) program. # (Raymund B.
Villanueva)

A farmers’s group accused a bank of fencing off
land in Sitio San Isidro in Barangay Tungkong Mangga in San Jose del Monte City
in Bulacan, adding the bank is acting in behalf of the “landgrabbing” Araneta
family.

The Samahan at Sandigan ng mga Magsasaka sa San Isidro-Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (Sasamag-KMP) said the Manila Banking Corp. ordered the fencing off of lots and started constructing one-meter high posts surrounding the perimeter of Blocks 9, 10, 11,12 and 13B in Sitio Isidro.

Sasamag-KMP said surveyors and engineers from AB Surveying and Development Corp. arrived last August 29 and claimed the farm lots planted with vegetables, root crops and food crops where houses are also located.

The surveyors misled barangay officials and presented a letter that said they would only conduct a “survey of the area,” the group said.

“The farmers were surprised to see heavy equipment and construction materials such as hollow blocks, steel and cement bags being hauled near their farms. The fencing and construction activities have instantly sent the farmers into a panic,” Sasamag-KMP said,

The group also said that soldiers of the 48th Infantry Battalion-Philippine Army encamped nearby only looked on as farmers tried to stop the surveying company from fencing off farms and home lots .

“The soldiers are not in our community to protect the people. They are here to protect the interests of land grabbers and private companies with businesses in San Jose Del Monte City,” Eriberto Peña of the Alyansa ng Magbubukid sa Bulacan said in a statement.

Peña said the soldiers have been encamping near the
community’s barangays hall since 2018 and conducting surveillance activities
masked as “Community Support Program Operations.”

The farmers said Barangay Tungkong Mangga in
SJDM is the targeted location of the intermodal depot and last station of the
multibillion MRT-7—a big-ticket construction project supported by the Rodrigo Duterte
administration.

The MRT-7 and commercial components will cut through 103.48 hectares of the farming communities of Sitio San Isidro and Sitio Ricafort in Tungkong Mangga. More than a thousand farmers and their families will be affected by the project, the KMP said.

Large real estate companies have already put up subdivisions and township projects in San Jose Del Monte City in anticipation of the completion of the MRT-7 project.

In addition to the Araneta group, Ayala Land Inc. has also expanded its Php7-billion Altaraza Town Center project to include Amaia Altaraza Steps, a medium-rise condominium project.

The group said the Araneta family covets a total of 3,500 hectares of land in San Jose Del Monte City that includes portions of the nearby Pangarap village in Caloocan City-North.

“These real estate projects are affecting the farmers in the sub-village of San Isidro in Tungkong Mangga. There are frequent instances wherein crops planted by farmers are being bulldozed by surveying companies and private security guards employed by real estate companies. The security personnel also prohibit farmers from planting and harvesting their crops,” KMP leader Danilo Ramos said. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)

Media groups condemned the worsening attacks against
the press in the Philippines following the death threat against Mindanao Gold
Star Daily associate editor Leonardo Vicente Corrales, who is also alleged to
have a P1 million bounty on his head.

In a press conference, the National Union of
Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) raised concerns over the red-tagging of Corrales,
along with veteran journalist Froilan Gallardo of MindaNews.

On August 27, Corrales received flyers sent via
courier service alleging that both him and Gallardo are members of the
Communist Party of the Philippines and New People’s Army.

The
courier packet, sent on August 24, identified the sender as Danilo Tirso
Mantangan of Sitio Camansi, Lagonglong, Misamis Oriental with mobile phone
number 09091020123.

“It’s
an attempt to brand journalists as combatant parties of the conflict, instead
of journalists and civilians,” NUJP Western Mindanao safety officer JB Deveza said.

Deveza pointed out that the flyers also attacked the
credibility of the journalists by describing them as “biased” and “supporters
of terrorist organizations.”

“We
expect that this is not going away soon,” Deveza said, explaining the need
“to express our outrage and for the state to do something about it.”

“It does not only endanger the life of our
colleagues but also depriving the community of fair and unbiased reporting,”
he added.

Conflict
journalists

Gallardo,
who has covered the various conflicts of Mindanao for since the 1980s, said he
was included in the ongoing red-tagging of journalists, lawyers, church workers
and activists for having recently interviewed the New People’s Army about a
raid they carried out in August.

“We
cannot just write the government’s side, but also the rebels’,” Gallardo said.

“If they think that by doing this they would kill
the idea of journalism, they thought wrong”

Gallardo said journalists are duty-bound to get the
side of rebels in the many conflicts in Mindanao as they are expected to
interview government armed forces as well.

“We fail to get both sides of the story, then we are
no good as journalists,” Gallardo explained.

Predicate
to ‘terrorism’

Former
NUJP chair Inday Espina-Varona said journalists do not work in a vacuum and
called the attacks part of a national government policy stemming from President
Rodrigo Duterte’s vow to “crush Asia’s longest running communist insurgency.”

“Actually,
he (Duterte) had given himself his own deadline of June 2019, so there is a
sense of urgency now,” she said, adding that the red-tagging on Gallardo and
Corrales are connected and appeared to be in line with government’s efforts to
amend the Human Security Act.

Among others, this could lead to the classification
of journalists’ interviews of persons or groups tagged as terrorist as “an
accessory to crime and to terrorism.”

“There
is a strong attempt from government officials to not allow this (interviews
with rebels) anymore because it is deemed to be giving succor to their
enemies,” Varona said.

“The government’s view is: if you don’t want to be
red-tagged then you need to condemn certain parties, which is not what a
journalist does,” she added.

Making
journalists vulnerable

Varona
said the sedition charges filed against opposition figures, which stemmed from
a bogus ouster matrix Malacañan Palace itself released, makes journalists
vulnerable as it opens the possibility of their inclusion in the case.

“There’s
a lot of institutional repression, but it’s not just enough to say ‘let’s wait
for a law or a campaign’ because these attacks are not a joke and should be
taken very seriously. They should be laid at the feet of a government that
consistently failed to recognize these threats,” she said.

Jonathan
de Santos, NUJP National Capital Region chair stressed that journalists are
civilians and should not be labelled as belonging to any side in the conflict
for simply doing their jobs. He added that if this can happen to journalists,
it could happen to anyone.

Ms.
Azenath Formoso of the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) read spokesperson,
Atty. Jacqueline Ann C. de Guia, CHR spokesperson, calling attacks on
journalists attacks on people’s right to the truth and to be fully informed.

The CHR It also echoed calls for security forces in Cagayan de Oro and Northern Mindanao to investigate the red-tagging and ensure the safety of targeted individuals.

The College Editors’ Guild of the Philippines (CEGP), meanwhile, said the attacks against Corrales and Gallardo extend to the ranks of the campus press.

“Military intelligence agents infiltrate campuses all over the country and take pictures of student publication offices,” CEGP national secretariat member Trixia Amboy said during the press conference.

In
a statement, the Philippine Press Institute (PPI) for its part called the
red-tagging of Corrales and Gallardo “baseless and irresponsible.”
This does not only endanger the profession and render chilling effect but also
put the lives of those red-tagged and their families at risk,” PPI said.

“We urge the government to hold
accountable the perpetrators of such false, malicious and dangerous
propaganda,” PPI added. # (Raymund
B. Villanueva)

Ricky Serenio, the self-confessed drug syndicate bagman who blew the whistle on persons, including policemen and politicians, he claimed were on the take from the illegal trade, was ambushed and killed in Bacolod City Saturday afternoon, August 31.

Two wounded suspects were arrested soon after following a brief chase by police.

Serenio, who was on his way home to Pulupandan town south of Bacolod, had just turned onto the highway after picking up a friend in a subdivision when he was attacked by the motorcycle-riding killers.

He was rushed to the nearby Bacolod South Hospital but was declared dead on arrival from at least five gunshot wounds.

A passing police patrol chased the gunmen, resulting in a multi-vehicular accident. The suspects then tried to flee on foot.

They were identified as Joemar Dumip-ig, 30, of Barangay 14 in Bacolod, and Allan Bustamante, also 30, of Barangay Mabuhay 2 in Toboso town. Both had gunshot wounds in the leg and were taken to the Corazon Locsin Montelibano Memorial Regional Hospital for treatment.

Serenio gained notoriety when, shortly after his arrest in Talisay City in January 2017, he admitted being the “bagman” of the Berya drug syndicate, which operates in Western Visayas, and then started naming law enforcers, judges, politicians and even media practitioners he claimed received protection money from his gang.

Soon after, in April of the same year, Serenio’s brother Wilmar was gunned down. The next month, his father Wilfredo was also shot dead outside their home in Barangay Singcang-Airport.

Before Serenio was killed, a younger brother said he visited their home and had lunch there. #

Armed men believed to be military personnel barged into a home in an upland village of Himamaylan City early Friday morning, August 30, allegedly handcuffing and blindfolding occupants, including high school students, and forcing them into a vehicle as they searched for purported communist rebels, a human rights group said.

The September 21 Movement Southern Negros said the gunmen forced their way into the home of farmer Delia dela Rosa Pacheco, 64, in Sitio Maliko-liko, Barangay Carabalan around 3 a.m.

They then rounded up Pacheco, her niece Aiza dela Rosa, 24, and two other relatives, one a Grade 11 student, the other in Grade 10, and a guest, Teresita Camanso, 46, a daycare worker from Sitio Lanap, Barangay Buenavista who was staying for the night after attending a seminar at the Himamaylan city hall.

The statement quoted Pacheco as saying they were all ordered to lie on the floor as the gunmen cuffed and blindfolded them. They were later taken to the vehicle.

Camanso told the human rights group that the gunmen asked her if she knew “Loida” and “Toti,” who they said were members of the New People’s Army who were supposedly staying in the house.

She was also grilled about the formation of an indigenous peoples’ organization in her village.

The other occupants of the house were also interrogated.

The September 21 Movement condemned the incident and urged vigilance against what it called the “creeping militarism and dictatorship in Negros.” #

Two journalists in Mindanao were again
red-tagged, one threatened with death with a P1 million bounty on his head.

The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines
(NUJP) said Leonardo Vicente “Cong” Corrales, associate editor of the Mindanao
Gold Star Daily, was again named in a new anonymous red-tagging material, along
with respected veteran journalist Froilan Gallardo of Mindanews and several other
Cagayan de Oro personalities and organizations.

“On Wednesday, August 28, we were informed that new
anonymous red tagging material against several personalities in Cagayan de Oro,
similar to the earlier flyers and banners, had been received, this time from a
courier service, by Iglesia Filipina Independiente priest Fr. Rolando Abejo and
a city hall employee who had also been red tagged earlier,” the NUJP said in a
statement.

Part of the red-tagging material targeting Corrales.

Corrales
had repeatedly been included in red-tagging materials distributed around
Cagayan de Oro this year, accusing the former NUJP director of membership or
links to the communist armed movement.

The red-tagging also previously included his wife
and son.

A flyer from a “Black Mamba,” purportedly of the
“MAT-NMR Press Club Chapter,” claims there is a P1 million bounty for the death
of Cong.

The alleged bounty on Corrales may be the first on a
journalist, NUJP sources said.

The packet received by a Cagayan de Oro City Hall employee Evelyn Naguio, who was earlier red-tagged herself, on August 28.

The
flyer intended for Fr. Abejo also included a list of organizations and
personalities supposedly linked to the rebels. Gallardo was included in this
list.

The
materials received by Fr. Abejo also named human rights lawyer Beverly Musni
and her daughter and colleague Czarina.

Asked
by the NUJP what he could have done to earn so much hatred as to seek his
death, Cong said the only reason he knows is a column he wrote on the treatment
Higaonon evacuees from Sitio Camansi, Barangay Banglay in Lagonglong town,
Misamis Oriental had received when they descended on Cagayan de Oro to seek
help from the provincial government.

Gallardo
for his part said he might have been targeted because he had recently interviewed
the New People’s Army on a raid in which they seized a number of weapons from
security guards of Minergy Power Corporation.

“But
whatever they may have done, there is nothing that justifies such harassment
and vilification and, in the case of Cong, an actual death threat,” the NUJP
said.

“It
is not as if our colleagues have not alerted and sought the help of local
officials and the local security community,” the group added.

In
July, representatives of the Cagayan de Oro Chapter of the NUJP, the Cagayan de
Oro Press Club and church organizations held a dialogue with local government
officials to stop the red-tagging of personalities and organizations in the
city.

No concrete action has yet materialized as a result
of the dialogue.

“We hold that the reason the red tagging,
particularly of Cong, has worsened to actually turn potentially deadly is
because of the apparent lack of interest of local government and security units
to protect those so threatened and to go after and prosecute those responsible
for this clearly dangerous vilification,” the NUJP statement said.

The
NUJP demanded that authorities and security forces in Cagayan de Oro and
Northern Mindanao ensure the safety of other journalists who find themselves in
danger because of red tagging.

“We
urge our colleagues in Cagayan de Oro and Northern Mindanao to close ranks and
join us demand from your local government and security officials the protection
you are entitled to,” the NUJP said. # (Raymund
B. Villanueva)

The National Democratic Front of the
Philippines (NDFP) condemned the arrest of another of its peace consultant
Monday, calling it “another obstacle to peace.”

“The Duterte
regime remains on a fascist rampage that adds more and more obstacles to the
resumption of the peace negotiations with the NDFP,” its negotiating panel
chairperson Fidel Agcaoili said.

In a
statement, Agcaoili said Esterlita Suaybaguio, arrested by police operatives in
an apartment building in Quezon City Monday, August 26, is covered by the Joint
Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees (JASIG) with Document of
Identification (DI) Number ND 978447 as second consultant for Mindanao.

Under JASIG,
peace consultants and staff from both the NDFP and the Government of the
Republic of the Philippines (GRP) enjoy “immunity
from surveillance, harassment, search, arrest, detention, prosecution and
interrogation or any other similar punitive actions due to any involvement and
participation in the peace negotiations.”

“A copy of
her DI is deposited in the safety deposit box under the name of Archbishop
Joris A.O.L. Vercammen,” Agcaoili said. Vercammen belongs to The Old Catholic
Church of The Netherlands.

In July 12,
2017, former government peace negotiators Hernani Braganza and Angela L.
Trinidad and Philippine Ambassador to The Netherlands Jamie Ledda witnessed the
consignment of the NDFP list with Vercammen.

In July 2017, the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace
Process said that then GRP chief negotiator Silvestre Bello III issued Letters
of Authority (LA) to the JASIG-covered rebel consultants they could present to
police authorities and military in case they are held or arrested.

The Philippine National Police said they confiscated a handgun, bullets
and grenade from Suaybaguio’s apartment, an offense it charged all other
arrested NDFP peace consultants and staff with since the GRP walked away from the
peace negotiations in June 2017.

“Instead of
promoting just peace, the Duterte regime and its military even send psywar (psychological
warfare) and spy teams in schools and communities and even abroad to muddle the
facts about the peace talks, sow disinformation on activist organizations and
NGOs, and hide the widespread extrajudicial killings and rampant human rights
violations in the country,” Agcaoili said.

“The NDFP Negotiating Panel calls for the immediate release of Suaybaguio and the dropping of false charges against her, as well as the scores of other detained NDFP consultants and personnel,” Agcaoili added. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)